


Hazatérés

by phyripo



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Divination, Dragons, Duelling, F/F, and other words starting with d
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-01 16:59:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13299234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phyripo/pseuds/phyripo
Summary: In which Natalya meets an intriguing woman, should not be left alone with impressionable children, and is very bad at predicting her own future.Also, there is a dragon.





	Hazatérés

**Author's Note:**

> Another rarepair exchange thing that I went overboard with because I don't know how not to. Featuring abuse of the Harry Potter Wiki and me applying my linguistics study to fanfiction again, I present... This. 
> 
> Because I figured it would make no sense for students at the (presumably) Slavic-language schools Durmstrang and Koldovstoretz to learn the mostly Latin-based spells taught at Hogwarts (and I assume Beauxbatons) I instead used Old Church Slavonic, the ancestor of a lot of modern Slavic languages, to make counterparts to them! Because I'm a nerd! You can hover over words for an explanation, but for those on mobile, there's a list at the end as well (:
> 
> Of course, in the translations of the books, some spells were changed, (I did use one instance of that because it actually makes sense) but not systematically, and I could probably go on about this for pages but I'm not going to because who cares anyway. So! Here it is!
> 
> FEATURING  
> Belarus - Natalya Arlovskaya  
> Hungary - Erzsébet Héderváry
> 
> The title means something like 'homecoming', after a Dalriada song (:

Natalya doesn’t think she likes London very much. She never has liked cities, truth be told. There are far too many things to see – an omen here, a muddled magical aura there – and it just hurts her head. It’s impossible to interpret anything like that.

The main wizarding district of the city is, if anything, worse. While it’s charming in a way, with its quaint entrance through a dim, overfull pub, it’s also too crowded, too loud, has too many things vying for her attention, so she hurries through Diagon Alley – _ha, very funny_ – until she finds the address written on the piece of parchment now in her bag. She has long since memorized it. Since before she even received the invitation, in fact.

A small hotel, located in an alley branching off from the main road. Natalya is pleased to find that it’s quiet in the restaurant downstairs. A flyer about the gathering she’s here for is tacked to a message board, but none of the other participants seem to be around.

“Can I help you?” a voice comes from behind the bar, closely followed by a man in deep red robes emblazoned with the hotel’s insignia. He feels as bored as he looks, his aura dim. She huffs.

“I have a reservation.”

“You’re here for that conference thing, then?” he asks. “Name.”

“Yes, I am. Arlovskaya.”

“You’re late, the whole lot of them have gone back out already,” the man says, rifling through parchments.

“I know.”

“Arlovskaya, here we are. Ah, _divination_ expert, I see.” A spike of brown-ish disgust flares through his aura. Natalya just looks at him. He grabs a key. “Well, here you go, they put you with the magical creatures gal, room 101. But you knew that already, innit?”

“No.” She takes the key. “I do know you’re a close-minded little man, but that’s not so hard.”

He splutters indignantly, but Natalya leaves him behind and climbs the stairs to her room. She did know she’d be sharing, of course, but not with whom. She’s never been very good at predicting her own future.

At the end of a narrow landing, she finds room 101, and pushes the ornate key into the lock while her shrunken bag floats insistently against her calves.

There is a noise from inside. She stills. Maybe, not _everyone_ is out already. Perhaps her roommate wanted to wait for her for whatever reason. With a sigh, Natalya pushes the door open and peers into the small room, scanning the clapboard and the tiny paintings on the walls, the two beds pushed underneath two narrow windows, and the vivid colors of a bright magical aura amid it all. It flares with turquoise curiosity, so she steps into the room.

The woman in the center of the aura is almost exactly what Natalya would expect from an expert in magical creatures, even if she didn’t have the benefit of foresight. She would be unremarkable, with her average height and her long brown hair, if she didn’t have a jagged scar running up a temple, and swirling, colorful tattoos all across her muscular bare arms. Natalya could probably know her name, but she never really bothers to read guest lists. Whatever’s important will make itself known.

“Hi,” the woman says, grinning. “You must be Natalya, right?”

“I am.” Natalya shuts the door behind her and floats her luggage over to the bed that’s not occupied by a large trunk. She shakes her wand out of her sleeve and points at her bag. “Бол҄Ьи.”

The woman doesn’t look surprised when the bag swells back to its original size. Used to Slavonic spells, then. Natalya files that away. Gathering information with logic is just as much a part of divination as actually interpreting omens is, at least to her. People always seem surprised about that.

“I’m Erzsébet,” the woman offers, shaking her hair over her shoulders. She’s wearing Muggle clothing; a T-shirt and jeans with holes at the knees.

“Hungarian?” Natalya shrugs off her traveling robes and flings them across the bed. It’s mid-September, but far warmer than she is used to from home, or indeed from school; she could probably do without them. If push comes to shove, there’s always warming charms. Necessity has made her very good at those.

Erzsébet nods. “And you’re from Belarus, right?” And, when Natalya nods as well, “Divination expert, I read.”

There’s no sign of the disgust or mistrust Natalya is so used to, which is nice. She hums a bit.

“Do you wanna go get something to eat? I can fill you in on what’s happened already, if you want.”

“I could use some food.”

* * *

“So if you went to Koldovstoretz,” Erzsébet starts, gesturing with her fork and launching a tiny bit of spaghetti across the table, “did you play – come on, what’s it called again? Rumpeldunk?”

Natalya almost chokes on her drink. “ _Rumpeldunk_? What the fuck? Is that what they call Quidditch at Durmstrang?”

“Quidditch! Right, of course, should have known, it’s practically the same in Hungarian.” Erzsébet seems entirely unmoved by her choking noises. “Rumpeldunk is the Norwegian word – what do you call it, then?”

“Just Квиддич in Russian, and we did sometimes play on entire uprooted trees, yes. Well, not me. Never made it on the team.”

“Fascinating,” she says, grinning.

Natalya leans back in her comfortable chair. She and Erzsébet have sought out a restaurant in London’s wizarding district, and Erzsébet filled her in on the beginning of the gathering of ‘post-war’ experts that she missed.

They have been asked to come to the United Kingdom to discuss the state of the wizarding world as a whole, and think of ways their various fields of expertise can be combined more efficiently. Natalya foresaw a disaster _without_ magical aid, but she has a fascination with disasters, so she agreed to come anyway, especially when it became clear to her, through various signs, that it would probably not be disastrous _for her_. Her roommate, at least, is a good start.

Mostly, Erzsébet explained, a man named Kirkland rambled on about how happy he was that they were all there and then the grumpy bartender asked him to shut up or sod off and they almost got into a fight before they were stopped by the expert in transfiguration, who is from Austria and went to school with Erzsébet. Natalya feels almost disappointed that she missed it. Almost.

“Why were you late, anyway?”

Natalya tugs her sleeves down. “My sister needed help with setting up her new job at Koldovstoretz. We couldn’t just leave her to the mercy of the damn school children.”

“Oh no, no one should be left to that. You’re a good sister,” Erzsébet comments, laughing. She doesn’t have any siblings, Natalya knows this although she hasn’t said so, but she does have a big family, spread out all over.

“I had to wait on a portal back,” she explains, and isn’t that fucking ironic, that someone who can predict the future misses the frame to go back home? The guard point blank refused to let her through alone.

“Portal?” There’s a slight note of disbelief in Erzsébet’s voice.

“Russia’s immense. It would take ages to get to the school by any other method. There’s portals all over the country, been there for an eternity, they’re not even sure where they came from. I don’t think they know how they work either. I’ve been told the school was built around the point where they ended up.”

“Fascinating,” she says again, tucking some dark hair behind her ear, which seems to be missing a bit at the top, like something has taken a bite out of it. “We ought to learn about these kinds of things in school. We’re all so isolated.”

“Maybe.” The other three major European wizarding schools have the Triwizard Tournament, of course, recently re-revived, but Koldovstoretz is rather rigid in its isolation. Natalya puts her cutlery down on her empty plate and turns her face into the sunlight for a brief moment. “We’re kind of a mess, don’t you think?”

Erzsébet raises an eyebrow. The scar stretches with it. “The two of us?”

A small chuckle, barely there, escapes Natalya’s throat. “The wizarding world as a whole. Russia’s alright, there’s a ministry and all that, but it’s one of the few countries that does.”

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

She shrugs. Natalya doesn’t really believe – though she has no evidence pointing either way – that the lot of them can convince anyone to change _anything_ , especially here in the UK. The magical community tends to hang on to old traditions. She knows this very well, even if she doesn’t fully support most of the traditions. Anymore.

“And, you know, things are always changing. They’re actually setting up a Ministry of Magic in Hungary.” She smirks, taps a finger on the table. “Anything to stop the _Romanians_ from monopolizing dragon research.”

“In time, we might get somewhere.”

“I hope so.” The smirk softens into a genuine smile. “How about dessert?”

* * *

The next day, the assembled experts – some with quite obvious hangovers – take Portkeys to Hogsmeade. The small village is a huge relief to Natalya; she feels like she can breathe again through the diminished input of information. They leave quickly, though, walking to Hogwarts like a school class coming back from a trip.

At the school, they will be giving guest lectures on their various areas of expertise and congregate to talk to the teachers. Natalya isn’t particularly looking forward to the teaching; she’s never held much affinity for children, and Divination classes tended to be messy at Koldovstoretz. It’s probably no different here. At least she knows chances are high she’s more interesting than their actual professor.

Actually, she knows for sure she’s more interesting than their professor. Because, well, divination.

Natalya has, over the years, heard many things about Hogwarts – it is, after all, the most famous wizarding school in Europe – but she can’t help but be awed by the actual sight of the many towers rising to the stark blue sky. The castle looks much as if it has always been there, like it’s merely an extension of the rugged landscape surrounding them. It blends into the mountains not in the literal way that Koldovstoretz does, carved entirely into imposing grey rock as the school is, but in a way that suggests the environment is used to having it there. Like they’ve grown together.

“Damn,” says Erzsébet behind Natalya, and the Austrian transfiguration expert replies with a noise that’s half agreeing and half shocked at the expletive, mild as it is.

A white cloud drifts by behind the towers. Natalya smiles to herself. A good omen.

The group wait in the high hall while some curious children stare at them from halfway up a grand staircase. Paintings line the walls, chattering excitedly among themselves – one of the experts is drifting closer to the wall and seems to be talking to a painted knight. Natalya, however, turns the other way exactly in time to see a small door open and a stern, black-haired witch in emerald green robes step into the hall. Her pointed hat is crooked on her head.

“Good morning,” she calls. Everyone else turns to her as well. She gazes at the group through severe rectangular glasses and nods shortly. “Good morning. My name is Minerva McGonagall, and I am Headmistress of Hogwarts. I am very pleased to have you all here.”

Her sharp eyes zip over the crowd, and Natalya abruptly feels like she’s back in school. Failing her transfiguration exam again.

“If you would follow me?” She walks further into the hall, looks up at the children still lingering on the staircase, and calls, “Mr Malfoy, Mr Potter – don’t you have a class to attend?”

The boys scamper off quickly.

 _Potter_. Now there’s a name everyone in the wizarding world knows. Even Natalya, who tends to be out of the loop when it comes to magical news and has been all her life, couldn’t have missed the war raging across the British Isles and nearly all of Europe, about twenty years ago now. She tugs her sleeves down. She was very young, of course, but even at Koldovstoretz, where she started just a year after the end of the war, they taught _Harry Potter’s_ name. Does he have children that go to school here now?

Headmistress McGonagall leads the group to a great hall – which she introduces as _the_ Great Hall – and has them all sit at a long table according to their area of expertise. Natalya gives her a smirk when her nose visibly wrinkles at ‘divination’. She’s used to it.

The Great Hall is something else entirely, in no way comparable to the mess hall at Koldovstoretz, which is cozy enough with its massive fireplace and never-ending chatter of students, but does not have such a beautifully enchanted ceiling that mirrors the blue sky outside. She wonders how that works – surely someone here is an expert on… Magical ceilings?

Erzsébet ends up right next to her at the end of the table, rolling the sleeves of her robes up. They look a little like battle robes or Quidditch gear with their tight sleeves, but Natalya supposes having trailing sleeves like she prefers is inadvisable when there are animals around. She’s never met many people who work with magical creatures, and it’s rather fascinating to her that someone would put themselves in danger like that.

As she expected, although not actually predicted, the Divination professor is… Exactly what one would expect from a Divination professor. She’s woozy, sees omens everywhere even when Natalya is fabricating them herself, performing her best wandless work in years, and keeps leaning away from the man next to her – the teacher of Care of Magical Creatures, who’s also exactly what one would expect from someone who teaches that subject. He is massive and rugged and is talking animatedly with Erzsébet, gesturing everywhere with her just as enthusiastic.

While everyone is talking, children file into the hall to eat at four long tables. Almost all of them are looking and some are unsubtly pointing at the teachers’ table, and Erzsébet waves while Natalya tries not to fall asleep listening to their Divination teacher yammer about the leaves in her teacup. Should have gotten coffee. It doesn’t matter to her that she probably looks uninterested.

“We didn’t have ghosts at Koldovstoretz,” she murmurs at Erzsébet, who looks her way, confused, and is about to say something when a pearly white, translucent figure emerges from the table, slowly rising up until it’s floating above the dark wood.

“Some new faces, I see,” the ghost says. He tips his massive hat. “How wonderful!”

“An ill omen!” the Divination professor exclaims, and Natalya just shrugs at Erzsébet, who’s obviously trying to hold in laughter. She looks down, letting her long, pale hair fall around her face to obscure her own pleased grin. She’s not known for her ability to make people laugh.

When lunch has been had and even the Herbology teacher and expert have stopped swapping excited stories about venomous plants, the Headmistress asks for silence.

“As you all know,” she says, addressing everyone in the Great Hall, “there will be several guest lecturers today. They are at liberty to discuss any subject with you. This does not mean you won’t have to do your assigned homework for next class, mind.”

A groan rises from the students’ tables. Erzsébet huffs.

“Everyone, please proceed to your normal classrooms.”

The children start filing out, and the teachers and experts follow. Erzsébet waves jauntily at Natalya when they part ways in the hall – her going outside, Natalya following the Divination teacher up the stairs, behind the throng of students.

And up the stairs, and up the stairs, and up the stairs, which seem to move, and past hundreds of excitedly talking paintings, and past a loud poltergeist that Natalya manages to avoid but the teacher can’t, and she finds it hard not to laugh along with the little floating man, and up the stairs, which get ever narrower until they reach a landing which holds about twenty children already. Third-years, Natalya has been informed, so about thirteen years old. They’re talking loudly among themselves, but quiet a little when they appear.

“Here we are,” says the teacher, who looks extremely uncomfortable. She points her wand at the ceiling, and a ladder falls down. “I will be… Elsewhere, should you need me. But you won’t.”

“Right.” Natalya eyes the ladder, tugging at her sleeves. Barely waiting until the teacher is gone, she asks, “Is this normal? Do you have to climb up a lot of ladders to get to class?”

“Only this one,” a boy in the back pipes up.

“Right,” Natalya repeats. Well, she’d better go take a look. She tells the children to wait and climbs up the ladder, careful not to step on her robes, but has her mind made up before she even reaches the oppressive heat of the classroom – if it can be called that at all, with its weird assortment of chairs and draperies and overwhelming sweet scent. She climbs back down.

“I hate to say this, but we’re going to go back down all those fu— All those stairs and go outside.”

“Outside?” a girl asks. “But our professor says that nothing should cloud your Inner Eye.”

Natalya raises her eyebrows in disbelief. “And she achieves that by building a sauna? No, we’re going outside today.”

And so they all traipse down the many stairs again, and finally into the fresh autumn air. Natalya casts around the grass until she finds a good spot, by the edge of a large lake, and asks the children to sit down.

“I haven’t really introduced myself,” she starts for lack of better ideas. “My name is Natalya Arlovskaya, I’m from Belarus, and you should really not launch that at me if you don’t want it rebounded back at you.”

The boy she addressed quickly hides his wand up his sleeve, and the rest of the class chuckle. Alright. Maybe she can work with this. Just two hours. She can survive that.

“Any questions so far?”

A brown-haired girl raises her hand. Natalya tilts her head at her.

“Yes?”

“Where did you go to school, Ms Arlovskaya?” she asks politely. “Durmstrang?”

“No, I went to Koldovstoretz in Russia. If you’re curious, I could tell you – Хранѫ!” She flicks her wand quickly, drawing up a shield behind the girl, who whips around, surprised. After a second, a small shape hurtles towards the shield, and bounces cleanly off it, landing in the grass a few feet away. Natalya lets the shield drop and watches as Erzsébet comes running after the – whatever it is – robes flapping behind her.

The girl looks back at Natalya, fingers curling into a scarf in yellow and black. “Was that a Shield charm?” she asks.

“I suppose that would be the English term for it, yes,” she replies distractedly. Erzsébet is picking up the small shape from the grass, cupping it in gloved hands and shaking her head almost fondly. Her hair is in a ponytail now.

“What was that spell you used?”

“Hm?” She re-focuses. “Just the one I learned at school. I know you mainly use Latin-based spells here, so it’s probably different from the one you know.”

“But what—”

“At Koldovstoretz and Durmstrang, the spells taught are mostly based on Old Church Slavonic.”

“Sure are!” Erzsébet interrupts, now closer to their little circle. “Sorry about that, Natalya. This one got away from me.”

The creature between her fingers seems to be smoking a little. The children look at it in fascination, and some teenagers from what must be the class Erzsébet herself has taken over are wandering towards the lake.

“Of course,” Natalya says. She wonders if she can divine anything from the shape of the smoke curling around Erzsébet’s face, or from the way her green eyes pierce through it. Even though Natalya isn’t trying to see it, her aura is still visible, a faint shimmer of color around her. It really is bright. It’s not unheard of for adults to have an aura that bright, but it is rather rare. Natalya knows her own is, too, but she usually pulls it in around herself.

“What is _that_?” asks the boy who’d wanted to launch something at her earlier, sitting up on his knees – staining his black robes – and peering at Erzsébet curiously. The woman smiles, but shakes her head.

“I should get back to my class.”

Natalya is absolutely certain that her own group would have collectively _aww_ -ed in disappointment if she hadn’t been there. She can practically feel it. Honestly, she can’t really blame them. Divination was her least favorite subject at school.

“Perhaps,” she starts, catching Erzsébet’s green gaze, “we could arrange something for the second hour?”

“Like a swap, or a joint class? Sounds good to me!” She grins, then addresses the pupils. “We could teach you something about those Slavonic spells.”

“A duel!” a girl gasps, as if it’s the greatest idea she’s ever had. The other children seem to agree. Erzsébet just shrugs helplessly at Natalya, who feels her lips twitch without permission and tells the class they’ll see about that later. The thought of dueling someone is exciting, though. She was good at it in school, but you don’t exactly get many chances to fight someone when your main business is trying to figure out how the hell you’re able to tell the future.

When Erzsébet has left, walking back up the slope with her students following and a trail of smoke spouting from her hands, Natalya attempts to explain the basic truths about divination even though she _knows_ none of these children have any sort of psychic talent at all. That mischievous boy’s brother, though, he might prove talented, and the more information – actually _useful_ information – that kid gets, the better. The class is well-behaved, all in all.

After an hour, though, they get restless, and so Natalya tells them to follow her in search of Erzsébet, assuming she and her class have not been set ablaze by the magical creature.

They’re all fine, and waving enthusiastically as they approach. The children seem to know each other and form little clusters quickly, all keeping half an eye on Natalya and Erzsébet.

“Well, what are we gonna do?” Erzsébet asks. She’s pushed her sleeves up again, but still has her gloves on. They seem to be dragonhide.

“I don’t know.” Natalya raises an eyebrow. “Duel?”

“You’d actually do that?”

She shakes her hair out of her face. “Nothing wrong with a friendly duel, is there? We might teach them something.”

Erzsébet grins wickedly. “Alright. You’re on, Natalya.”

 So they gather up the children, tell them to stay back a bit – Natalya learns Erzsébet’s surname, since her class cheer for Ms Héderváry – and then take their stances. It seems that the other witch has had training as well, because she goes through all the required motions, even explaining them to the Hogwarts pupils. They’re all looking very attentive.

They turn to each other, and the smirk that Erzsébet sends her way makes a shiver of anticipation tingle up Natalya’s spine. She can never tell how a duel will end for her, and that makes it one of the more exciting things in a life where everything seems predestined in some way.

Erzsébet fires off the first jinx, which Natalya easily sidesteps without even knowing what it was supposed to do.

“Вода!” she shouts, blasting a jet of water at Erzsébet, who only manages to draw up a shield halfway through and gets soaked anyway. She follows it up quickly with, “Подвигнѫ Съмрьть!”

The shield has been dropped, as expected, and Erzsébet’s eyes widen when her legs stop moving, leaving her to hop around awkwardly. The children laugh, and Natalya feels a second of triumph, but Erzsébet raises her wand as she slowly tilts over, not casting the counter-curse on herself, but aiming at Natalya.

“Дрьжѫ!”

Natalya can feel her movements slowing down, like moving through thick syrup instead of air, and realizes she’s pretty much fucked when Erzsébet undoes the bind on her legs and stands up straight. She grins, aura pulsing with triumph. The children are cheering.

“Вцепени се,” Erzsébet says calmly, which is a spell that’s entirely unfamiliar to Natalya but certainly feels like a Stunning Spell when it knocks her over into the grass. Another white cloud drifts by overhead as she stares at the sky. Huh. Good omens, how ironic.

A few seconds later, Erzsébet appears in her field of vision, grinning down at her. Her, apparently dried, ponytail falls over her shoulder when she reaches down to her and taps her wand lightly against her shoulder, getting rid of the curse with a quick, “Възбѹждѫ.” Curiously, _that_ spell Natalya does know.

“I think I won!” she announces cheerfully.

“I suppose you did.” Natalya climbs to her feet, shakes her sleeves back into place, and then, even though it breaks every rule of dueling, she discreetly points her wand at Erzsébet, and says, “Изгънатизълъ.”

Erzsébet’s wand is knocked out of her fingers, which were already gripping it loosely, and flies into Natalya’s own. The woman gasps so dramatically that Natalya can’t help but laugh, even as she hands the wand back. The wood is dark, and if she feels for the core – phoenix feather. She _hmm_ ’s thoughtfully. Of course it is. Natalya knows more about wands than she probably ought to; her brother makes them.

“Hey, kids,” Erzsébet calls, “don’t do _that_ , okay? That’s cheating!”

“The world is unfair,” Natalya puts in, but she smiles when Erzsébet elbows her lightly in the side.

The children applaud them, and the whatever-creature smokes enthusiastically in its box a few meters away.

The next forty minutes, they spend answering general questions about their schools and the spells they learned there. Both of them carefully dodge questions about the exact locations of Durmstrang and Koldovstoretz. Natalya shouldn’t be able to tell, anyway; the portals make the school theoretically impossible to pin down to an actual location. But, again, divination.

When the two hours are up, she’s surprised to note that she’s actually had fun, but she can’t help but warn the children of impending doom just once before they walk in a disorderly fashion back to the castle for their free period. They’ll be fine.

“ _Impending doom_ ,” Erzsébet says, obviously amused. “So what’s that? Someone is going to fail their Divination exam?”

“Most certainly,” Natalya replies, and she smiles when that makes her laugh. “Did no one catch on fire?”

“Oh, no, not this time. It’s just smoke.” And, when Natalya raises her eyebrows, “I’ve caught a bit on fire before. I work with dragons, it’s inevitable, really!”

A _bit_ on fire, Natalya wants to asks, because how in Baba Yaga’s name do you catch a _bit_ on fire, but they have reached the castle, and Headmistress McGonagall is waiting in the hall, because they’re apparently the last ones to return and a further gathering is starting in a room adjacent to the Great Hall, which overlooks the school grounds down to the lake where they just were. A dark forest looms in the distance. There are probably a lot of interesting creatures in there for Erzsébet to investigate.

She keeps her attention focused mostly on the table they’re seated at throughout the discussion that unfolds, knowing it will only overwhelm her if she tries to contribute and not knowing what the hell she’d say anyway. A couple of times, she looks up a second or two before she’s addressed directly, and she sees that the Headmistress notices and seems slightly stunned by that. Nice. Skeptics are the best when they’re confronted with the truth.

As expected, it all devolves into chaos eventually, when the Greek ancient magic expert and the Turkish expert on counter-curses get into a huge fight about the origin of a particular spell, and the Austrian transfiguration guy gets caught in the crossfire and people start picking sides despite knowing next to nothing about the subject at hand.

It’s hilarious. Natalya grins.

“Hey,” Erzsébet says, still next to her and leaning over conspiratorially.

“What?” She pushes the woman down by the shoulder. A curse flies over her head and hits a portrait behind her, whose occupant jumps away to the next one over just in time and starts yelling indignantly. Erzsébet herself laughs, green eyes sparkling in Natalya’s direction.

“Thanks. You wanna get out of here? I saw there’s a Quidditch pitch – it’s been ages since I played.”

“We’ll be missed,” Natalya says.

“Will we, Natalya? Hey—”

“Yes, you can call me Nat, if you want.” She smirks. “Divination. And, I concede, we probably won’t be missed.”

Erzsébet smiles brilliantly and practically drags Natalya out of the chaotic room by the sleeve of her robe, attracting some odd looks from students as they rush outside. Erzsébet seems to have a good sense of direction and finds the Quidditch pitch quickly. There are a few children milling about, with and without brooms. A small group that had been in their sort-of-shared class earlier look surprised and wave tentatively.

“Hey!” Erzsébet calls.

“Hi, Ms Héderváry, Ms Arlovskaya. I thought there was a gathering?” the yellow-scarf girl from earlier asks.

“There was.” Erzsébet smiles. “Not very interesting. Do you have any spare brooms around here?”

If Natalya were another woman, a more responsible one, she’d probably feel guilty about setting a bad example for the kids, but as it stands, she just finds it kind of hilarious when the girl perplexedly points them towards a lockup, warning them that it’s closed as if they aren’t _witches_.

“Отъвръзѫ,” Natalya murmurs at the door, which clicks open obediently. Erzsébet smiles at her and slips inside, coming back out with two brooms in a moment. Natalya doesn’t know much about brooms, but they seem to be modern models, not like the ones flown at Koldovstoretz when they didn’t use trees. The trees were only for special occasions, anyway.

“Have you ever played Quidditch?” Erzsébet asks, handing her one of the brooms.

Natalya huffs. “I tried out for, ah, Seeker, but…” She waves her free hand vaguely, making Erzsébet laugh.

“Oh, of course, that would be really unfair.” They walk onto the pitch, which is, Natalya has to be honest, much better-looking than the one at Koldovstoretz, which is enclosed on all sides by the mountains and always felt cramped. This one, with the high wooden stands and the colorful banner, is much friendlier. If places had an aura –  well, they do, but that’s something Natalya cannot see – she’s certain this one’s would be as bright as Erzsébet’s.

“It’s nice,” she just says, aware that she sounds utterly unimpressed.

“Definitely!” Erzsébet has somehow caught the attention of some kids in green Quidditch robes flying overhead. They’re descending. She turns to them. “Hey, do you want some extra players?”

“Uhm,” a boy says, looking at his friends – maybe teammates. They are very color-coordinated. “Sure, I suppose. We could have a little game.”

They’re going to win, Natalya can tell abruptly, so she smiles and nods.

Erzsébet says, “I played, uhm… Come on, what’s the term? I played knakker at school.”

“ _Knakker_?” Natalya blurts.

“Oh, stop making fun of my Quidditch terms. I can’t remember what it’s called. Бияч mean anything to you? Terelő? The one with the bat!”

“Beater. You can be Beater if you want,” says the boy, amused. He seems a bit older than the pupils they had earlier, his aura more complex. Then, he levels a look at Natalya. “We’re a Seeker short, though.”

“Perfect.” She smirks. Erzsébet catches her eye, and they share a conspiratorial look. No one else seems to notice, least of all their new teammates.

As they play, which goes surprisingly smoothly, considering neither Natalya nor Erzsébet has played in years, they attract quite a crowd. It is exhilarating to fly again, Natalya’s robes flapping everywhere, her hair in her face. She’s unconcerned about finding the Snitch, because she knows she will in the end, as she always does. Instead, she hovers over the other players and watches Erzsébet, whose aura is swirling with bright, elated colors as she gleefully swings the bat around.

The woman swoops by every now and then, always smiling at Natalya, doing tricks to scattered applause from the students of Hogwarts.

Natalya drifts over to the stand with the yellow banner while the other Seeker circles around high above. She has a very clear visual of _yellow_ where the Snitch will be, so this seems like a good bet. Prediction. Whatever you want to call it.

It’s the sound that really seals it for her. A ringing, maybe a bell, somewhere close to the banner. If that isn’t an omen, she doesn’t know anymore.

She dodges a stray ball easily, and then – oh, there it is. Without much ceremony, Natalya reaches out, closes her fingers around the fluttering golden ball, and flies back up, where no one seems to have noticed the game is supposed to be over.

“Hey, Nat!” Erzsébet calls. “How’s it going?”

She smirks and opens her hand, showing her and everyone else the Snitch.

“Oh!” The woman starts to laugh, gripping her broom to keep from falling off. “Oh, Göncöl, that’s brilliant.”

The other players are spluttering, but Natalya just shrugs, letting her hair fall around her shoulders. Erzsébet is positively doubled over now, shoulders shaking and broom slowly drifting to the ground. Surely, it isn’t _that_ funny.

“I ought to have told you,” Natalya tells the boy from earlier, who was on the opposing team, “that I can see the future.”

He splutters more while she hands him the Snitch and flies down to join Erzsébet on the ground, straightening her robes and combing her fingers through her hair when she’s stepped off the broom. Erzsébet’s looking quite wind-swept, with a healthy flush on her tan cheeks that makes the green of her eyes stand out more as well as the scar, now completely unobscured by the brown hair. If Natalya concentrates, she knows she’d be able to pick out the story behind it.

But that would be… Not good, probably. She never cares much about things like that, but she does actually enjoy Erzsébet’s company and doesn’t want to antagonize her. She straightens her sleeves.

“That was great, Nat,” the woman in question is saying. “D’you wanna go flying some more or does the future have other things in store?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” she replies, although she has a flash vision of something to do with Erzsébet and fire that feels further off than the gathering will last. That’s… Nice. Not the fire, per se, but that they’ll see each other again beyond these few days. She doesn’t have many friends, just some people from school she keeps in contact with and her siblings, both much older than her.

“Well,” Erzsébet says, “then I suppose we’ll have to decide for ourselves. You reckon there’s anything interesting in that forest?”

“It’s forbidden.”

She raises a dark eyebrow. “We just sneaked out of a meeting, Nat.”

“No, I mean. That’s what it’s called. The Forbidden Forest.” She blinks, tugs at her sleeves. “We should go back to the castle. That Austrian man has been sent to look for us, but he’s got a terrible sense of direction.”

Erzsébet huffs. “Oh, yes, that sounds like him. He was one of the, uhm, student mentors for my year at Durmstrang and he messed up showing us to our rooms more than once. To be honest, we were all convinced he was trying to go to Beauxbatons and got lost.”

They leave their borrowed brooms against the door of the lockup and wander back to the main entrance, where the transfiguration expert is looking decidedly dazed. They escort the man back inside instead of the other way around, and are met with a lot of incredulous stares, and some envious ones as well. The Headmistress just sighs and shakes her head as if she wants to give them detention and is disappointed that she can’t.

It’s all over quite quickly after that, and the experts are seen off the grounds and then left free to do whatever they want until they are supposed to meet at the British Ministry of Magic tomorrow. Without even talking about it, Natalya and Erzsébet wander into Hogsmeade and go looking for a place to have dinner. They find a pub, order, and have a pleasant conversation over plates of slightly charred fish and absurdly sweet drinks they both make a weird face at but do finish.

Erzsébet tells some stories that Natalya severely hopes are fake – but knows aren’t – because surely no one needs that many dangerous creatures in their life, but apparently she does, and loves it. She’s fascinated by the tales about dragons, because she’s never actually seen one even though they are supposedly abundant in the mountain range surrounding Koldovstoretz, where a sanctuary is hidden.

“You should come visit,” Erzsébet suggests when they’re walking through the village again, on the way to the Portkey office. The sun is setting in a blaze of red behind the mountains, the towers of Hogwarts just visible among them. “If you want to.”

Natalya looks at her with one eye to see that her head is tilted in an uncertain way that seems out of place on her. Her aura is swirling restlessly, the colors uncertain as well.

“I think I will,” she replies, looking at the street ahead again. The light glints glaringly off the cobblestones.

“Is that a prediction, or…”

She smiles. “Both. I would like to visit.”

“Good.” Erzsébet reaches out and touches her forearm, over the trailing sleeve of her robe. “I look forward to it.”

“As do I.” She means it.

* * *

The following day goes by quickly, and Natalya doesn’t have much time to talk to Erzsébet after breakfast at the hotel. Due to their vastly different fields of expertise, they don’t see each other at all while visiting the Ministry, which Natalya finds quite underwhelming compared to the Russian one she visited once on a school trip. They have to get in by _flushing themselves down the toilet_ , for Baba Yaga’s sake!

The experts are set to leave in the evening, but Erzsébet manages to catch Natalya before she hurriedly runs off to catch the last Portkey to Romania.

“Yeah, it sucks,” she says, mouth downturned in distaste, “but it’s easiest to get home from there. Is there any faster way we can communicate than owl post? It’s kind of old-fashioned, don’t you think?”

“You could…” She frowns, trying to remember the right English word for it.

“Floo?” Erzsébet suggests. “With the fireplace?”

“Yes, thank you. Would that work?”

“That would work fine!”

They exchange addresses – in Natalya’s case, the name of her house – and then Erzsébet is off in a whirl of denim and dragonhide, leaving Natalya smiling faintly at the landscape painting on the wall of their hotel room. The river glitters in it in broad strokes of paint.

Yeah, not a disaster, she reflects.

When she runs into the judgmental bartender on her way out, she stops when she sees the disgust flare up again, and turns to him. She’s not supposed to give actual predictions when not asked, technically, but for fuck’s sake, the guy could at least contain himself.

“Hey,” she says.

“Problem?”

“Yours.” She traces the outcropping of muddled colors around his head. “She really doesn’t like you. At all.”

“What, I— Hey, you might think you’re doin’ me a bloody favor here or something, but—”

“Oh, no, not at all.” Natalya puts her room key down on the bar. “She’ll tell you next time you see her. Vividly. Have a good evening.”

It’s so, so petty, she’ll be the first to admit, but it feels so good when she turns her back and walks into busy Diagon Alley.

* * *

It doesn’t take long for Erzsébet to put in a Floo call. Natalya hurries to her living room when she hears the _woosh_ of her fireplace only a week or so after she returns from London – it seemed unreasonably cold in Belarus, but she’s already used to it again. She isn’t expecting a call, and is surprised to hear a shout.

“Nat?”

The voice is familiar for all that they haven’t spent much time together.

“Erzsébet,” she says, kneeling by the green fire, where the Hungarian woman’s head is visible. Her hair is again in its ponytail. Natalya’s dress pools around her legs, and her sleeves nearly trail the ground.

“Hi! I’m not interrupting any divining, am I?”

Natalya shakes her head. She had been working on writing some of her research on omens down. The break is welcome, really. Divination is a lot of _feeling_ and not a lot of _reasoning_.

“You look nice,” Erzsébet says with a smile. Her eyes are even more brilliantly green like this.

“Thank you,” Natalya replies, ducking her head and looking at the black fabric covering her legs.

“Hey, but I wanted to ask, are you still up to come visit? I’d really enjoy having you over.”

“I am, if you are.” The flash of fire is there again, in the back of her mind. She hasn’t been able to suss out yet whether it’s a positive or a negative thing. Fire has far too many connotations for her liking. Nevertheless, she likes Erzsébet, and she’s never been one to let herself be led by her abilities. That would be extremely counterproductive.

Erzsébet grins widely. It’s slightly distorted by the flames, but not enough to dim the expression. Natalya can’t remember the last time anyone besides her siblings looked so genuinely excited to spend time with her. Honestly, even _they_ don’t, usually. Oh, she knows they love her, and she loves them, but they wouldn’t be friends if they weren’t related.

“That’s great, Nat. I—” She looks over her shoulder and pulls a face. “Already complaining out there. I swear, I leave them alone for five minutes. Anyway, when are you free? We’ve recently got hold of a dragon, a Hungarian Horntail. It’s fucking brilliant, but we’re gonna need to ship him out to the reserve in Romania soon.”

“I’d like to see a dragon,” Natalya muses. “I’m generally always free. For some reason, no one thinks it’s weird when I’m not home.”

A laugh. “If only I could say the same thing.” She looks back and yells something over her shoulder in Hungarian that sounds agitated. “Göncöl above, I can’t even have my break in peace. Can you come through tomorrow? Or Apparate, if that’s easier. Actually, don’t do that. You might land on the dragon.”

“And we wouldn’t want that.”

“We definitely wouldn’t want that! I like you alive.”

Natalya can’t help but smile at that, and when Erzsébet catches her gaze, there’s a pleased sparkle in her eyes. She looks almost _fond_. That’s unusual, to say the least. Fondness is not the emotion Natalya generally brings out in people, with her no-nonsense predictions and her clothes that are too dark even for the wizarding world. It makes her heart skip a traitorous beat.

“I could come tomorrow,” she says after clearing her throat and looking away at the statuette of a mermaid on her mantel. “I’d like to.”

“Great! Is it alright if I make a call during my break again?”

“Of course.”

She smiles, then grimaces. “Speaking of, I have to go. I don’t want that dragon to fry anyone while I’m just sitting here. It was great to see you, Nat.”

“Likewise.”

“See you tomorrow, then!” She winces at something Natalya can’t hear or see. “That’s definitely my cue. Bye!”

“Goodbye,” Natalya tells the quickly retreating head. The flames return to their original orange glow, casting warmth over her body. She runs a hand through her hair and takes a deep breath. She’ll see a dragon – one of the most dangerous dragons in the world – tomorrow, but somehow that isn’t nearly as exhilarating as seeing Erzsébet. That probably means something.

Time will tell. It always does. It is like that.

* * *

The next day, Natalya is already in the living room when the fireplace roars green and Erzsébet pokes her head through. She’s scrounged up the tightest-sleeved robes she could find in her house, which are still rather loose but feel constricting all the same. Still, rather a little stifled than caught on fire, she reckons.

“Hello!” Erzsébet greets, glancing curiously around Natalya’s dark living room now that her view isn’t obscured. One of the paintings pulls a face at her. It always does that. Natalya glares at its occupant, presumably a witch who wrote the most accurate book of prophecies to date. Of course, she was also completely insane.

“Hello,” she then says to Erzsébet.

“You ready?”

Natalya nods, and, when Erzsébet’s head has disappeared, she throws some Floo powder into the grate, recites the address she has been given, and steps into the green flames. It’s a long journey – the Floo never was intended for travel through multiple countries, she thinks – but eventually, she steps neatly out into the break room of Erzsébet’s workplace. It’s a sanctuary for all kinds of magical creatures, she’s explained, from Flobberworms to two-headed snakes to, well… There’s a noise like a terrible cross between a scream and a roar outside. _Dragons_.

“Alright,” Erzsébet is saying, softly touching Natalya’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here. You wouldn’t happen to know if we’re going to be able to get that dragon shipped off today, would you?”

Natalya thinks about fire, and blinks. “You’re the expert.”

“Fair enough.” She smiles. Her fingers slowly slip down Natalya’s arm. “You dressed down a bit.”

“I thought it would be smart.”

“Yeah. You look beautiful, though.” Erzsébet takes her hand back and gestures with her chin. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

Natalya wants to say that Erzsébet herself looks very nice as well, because she does, with her dragonhide coat and boots and her hair in a bun, but the woman in question is already off like a Seeker after the Snitch, so she can only follow her, out of the wood-paneled break room and into the adjacent stone building, which smells like smoke and, underneath, like animals. There’s another scream from outside, and various sounds in response from behind a closed door in the wall opposite.

“We’re mainly here to help creatures that have fallen into man-made traps,” Erzsébet explains. She sighs. “They’re often not even magical traps. It’s just dangerous for everyone.”

She opens the door with a flick of her wand, and the sounds roll out in a cacophony. Natalya blinks.

“Alright?” Erzsébet asks, looking over her shoulder. She’s taken one glove off and is reaching a hand out to Natalya, who stares down at it for a second or two, then hesitantly touches her fingertips to the warm palm. Although she isn’t looking at Erzsébet’s face, she can see the pulse of happiness through her aura, and can’t help but smile while she slides her hand fully into hers.

“I’m good.”

They walk through the hall, then, hand-in-hand while Erzsébet points out the creatures in their pens. There are animals Natalya has never heard of in her entire life, despite having spent all of it in the wizarding world; an actual venomous goat and a sparkly sort of crab half-hidden behind some water plants in a large tank at the back of the room.

“That’s Andrea,” Erzsébet says, sounding faintly helpless. “She likes to shock people. A Muggle guy was keeping her as a pet.”

When Natalya takes a step back, Erzsébet squeezes her hand and laughs fondly. There are calluses on her fingers that are unfamiliar but strangely reassuring to Natalya. Here’s a woman who knows what she’s doing. That seems much more important than knowing what other people _will_ be doing. She tightens her fingers in return.

“Well, do you want to see the dragon? He’s kind of huge even though he’s apparently a younger one. We’ve got these Romanian handlers over and they’ve been trying to contain him all morning.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ve _said_ , don’t leave it to Romanians, but no.”

“I would like to see him,” Natalya replies, amused. She had a couple of Romanian classmates at Koldovstoretz and never developed the hatred for them that Erzsébet seems to have. Is that a Hungarian thing?

“Great! Come on, wands at the ready.”

Wand at the ready, as instructed – for which they have to let go of each other’s hands, seeing as they’re both right-handed – Natalya follows Erzsébet outside through the back door of the high stone building, leaving the animal noises behind to be replaced by screeching, and shouting in Romanian. They are surrounded by dense forest, a mix of evergreens and deciduous trees. The air smells damp and smoky at the same time, but the sky is clear blue and the ground only slightly wet underneath their feet. During a lull in the noise, the sound of rushing water can be heard in the distance.

Erzsébet gestures for Natalya to follow, and they walk around the building and into a large clearing, where the ground is scorched and a _massive_ dragon is attempting to rip free of the restraints some wizards and witches have thrown over him. The two of them stand half behind a wall, not daring to interrupt the process.

 _Kind of huge_ , Erzsébet said, but Natalya is starting to understand she’s prone to understatements, because this creature must be at least twelve meters long, and it seems to take up all the available space with its black body and wings, the yellow eyes glittering dangerously amid a forest of horns on its head. There are also horns on its tail – of course, it’s a Horntail – but that seems to have been pinned down by the Romanian handlers adequately.

“ _Baba Yaga_ ,” Natalya whispers, stunned. “He _is_ very beautiful, Erzsébet.”

“Scary, but beautiful,” she agrees, not looking away from the dragon but bumping her shoulder against Natalya’s. This close, her aura feels warm, slightly awed. Natalya lets a bit of her own unfold, lets the colors interplay. They fit well together.

One of the Romanians shouts something in their direction, and Erzsébet straightens, yelling back.

“I’ll be right back,” she tells Natalya. “They need a hand. Stay here.”

Before Natalya has the chance to speak, to wish her luck, she’s gone, taking her pleasant aura with her. The air that’s left is suddenly frigid; a shiver runs down Natalya’s spine despite the fact that the Horntail is quite busy trying to set fire to the clearing and the air shimmers with heat.

 _Fire_ , she thinks, and then, _fuck_.

You can’t change the future, she’s known this for a long time. If you did, her parents would still be alive, and she would – well. She tugs at her too-tight sleeves. No, you can’t change the future, but that doesn’t mean she is going to stand idly by while Erzsébet…

Clenching her jaw, she casts a Disillusionment Charm on herself in hopes the dragon won’t notice her, and then an Ѹмлъчѫ for good measure so her footsteps won’t be heard. It’ll have to be enough, because there isn’t _time_ —

The dragon rears back on its massive hind legs, horned tail sweeping everywhere all at once, and there’s _fire_ , there’s the fire Natalya has been seeing all this time, coming down in a cascade where she just was and Erzsébet is yelling about that instead of paying attention to the deadly creature trying to break free.

“Вода!” Natalya shouts, rather desperately, dousing the ground between Erzsébet and the dragon, but she still _isn’t looking_. She aims at the beast. “ Остолбеней! Остолбеней!”

The Stunning Spell ricochets off the black scales, doing little more than making the dragon even angrier when he notices Natalya. She shakes off her hasty disguises like a cloak, because what’s the use, and can feel Erzsébet’s aura flare with relief without concentrating.

“Остолбеней!” she yells again. And, when that still doesn’t accomplish anything, “Разорѭ!” Again, it glances off the scales and splinters a pine tree. Maybe she shouldn’t try to destroy things. A minor blast of fire scorches by mere centimeters from her arm – the heat feels like it blasts straight through everything.

One of the handlers is yelling something in Romanian from the other side of the dragon, who seems entirely uninterested when Erzsébet and Natalya are right there, pointing their wands, which seem infinitely tiny, at him.

“Nat!” Erzsébet says, reaching her free hand out to her, which means she’s holding her wand in her non-dominant hand, but that doesn’t matter much. Without knowing why, Natalya reaches back and entwines their fingers. Her arm hurts, _burns_.

The Hungarian Horntail is eyeing them like they’re a particularly tasty snack it wants to try, and Natalya has no idea what’s going to happen, absolutely no clue, and why the _fuck_ isn’t she better at predicting her own immediate future?

Maybe there isn’t one.

She pulls at Erzsébet’s hand, sending them stumbling into each other while the dragon rears back and takes a deep breath, obviously gearing up to burn them to a crisp. Faintly, she hears the woman cursing, and the handlers yelling spells and fighting with the ropes holding the dragon.

The dragon has gathered all his breath. There’s no use in running, Natalya knows – not _knows_ , but she isn’t stupid and is aware they can’t outrun a beast this size.

A sizzling sound emerges from the gigantic jaws, and Erzsébet is tugging her down, her wand pointing up. Natalya goes willingly, also aiming at the open mouth, the rows and rows of teeth, the charcoal-black tongue. She looks away, ducking her head so all she sees is Erzsébet’s coat.

“Разорѭ!” Erzsébet yells, at the same time that Natalya fires off her own spells.

“Остолбеней, _Ѹтврьждѫ_!”

They cling to each other, Erzsébet’s strong fingers painful on Natalya’s palm, and her arm still feels like it’s on fire, but there is not actual fire, no blast of heat to burn them to the ground, not so much as a spark descending upon them.

Natalya looks up, terrified, and there is the dragon, but he’s – he’s not moving.

“Erzsébet,” she whispers. She stands up slowly, wand held in a shaking hand, fingers of the other one still curled around Erzsébet’s.

The Hungarian woman looks up at her, green eyes wide, aura erratic. The Romanian handlers are yelling, and tugging at the ropes so that the dragon falls to its knees, sending up a cloud of dust and ash. Natalya closes her eyes against it.

When she opens them, Erzsébet is standing up, the blue of fear still in her aura for some reason, and she’s trembling as she reaches for Natalya’s sleeve.

“Nat,” she breathes. Natalya looks down.

“Oh.” That explains why her arm feels like it’s on fire. Her sleeve is actually scorched away, the skin underneath blistered. She looks at it with a weird sort of detachment.

“ _Göncöl_ ,” Erzsébet says, and then she’s tugging at her other arm, tugging her back into the break room and further into a small bathroom. She sits her down on the closed lid of the toilet. “Don’t— Don’t take off your robes. Don’t move, okay?”

“Okay,” Natalya echoes. How the hell did she miss that?

Erzsébet starts firing off a barrage of healing spells that Natalya half-recognizes – she never has much occasion to use, or even learn, healing spells; her occupation is not exactly a dangerous one, save for the occasional person angry about the very much self-made future she just happens to see. Some of the spells sting, but she can feel her arm now, tingling in an unpleasant way while the skin attempts to knit itself back together. It’s never so easy to heal magical wounds.

Fingers at the edge of her robe. “Take that off now,” Erzsébet commands, and Natalya swallows.

“I…” She starts, but then she looks up at the woman’s stricken face, her eyes bright among the soot and the scar and the worried lines, and falls silent. She sighs. “Okay.”

She looks down when she lets the black fabric slide off her shoulders – she’s wearing a sleeveless dress underneath.

“Oh,” Erzsébet says, but nothing else while she finishes the healing and cleaning spells and conjures something to bandage the wound. When she is done, there’s a creak and rustle as she – drops her dragonhide coat to the cold stone floor. Natalya looks at the crumpled, shiny fabric, but then Erzsébet is filling her field of vision, all wild brown hair and green eyes and tattoos all up and down her arms, now bare as well.

The woman is kneeling on the floor, reaching up and trailing her fingers over Natalya’s arms. Over the _scars_.

“There’s a reason I never wear short sleeves,” Natalya says bitterly.

“There’s a reason I have these tattoos,” Erzsébet counters. “Not very attractive, being bitten by an angry Kneazle.”

“Not very attractive, being attacked by fucking Dark wizards at fourteen,” Natalya replies. Every summer, she is reminded of what they _did_ to her family because of the ugly scars on her upper arms.

“That…” Erzsébet swallows. Her aura spikes with curiosity, but also with something soft that doesn’t look like _concern_ , per se, more like _care_. “That doesn’t say anything about you. Me? I’m an idiot.”

Natalya shakes her head, eyes closing.

“You know, I don’t invite just anyone over to see a dragon.” Erzsébet is saying, wry humor creeping into her voice. “I’d really like to get to know you better, if you’ll let me.”

She closes her eyes tighter, clenching her fingers in the fabric of her dress. There’s so much to her history – personal and family history – that Natalya is not keen on sharing with people. The fall from grace her parents made when they decided they weren’t going along with their families’ ideologies any longer. Her going to Koldovstoretz instead of Durmstrang like all her cousins, first and second and who knows how many times removed on the extensive Arlovsky family tree, because of that very fact.

A lot of things.

But Erzsébet’s aura is bright and curious and _accepting_ , and maybe it’s time. If her siblings can do it, then surely so can Natalya.

She lets her own aura unfold itself, looks at the dark streaks through the bright colors. Although Erzsébet can’t see it – there isn’t a hint of psychic talent anywhere there – she may be able to feel something that Natalya herself isn’t aware of, because she takes a deep breath and her colors light up even more. It’s beautiful.

“Okay,” Natalya says. “I’d like to know you too. If you’ll let me.”

“I will.” Erzsébet grins, tugging Natalya’s robe up her arms, gently covering the bandage and the scars, casting a repairing charm on the scorched bit. “It’ll be good.”

“Is that a prediction?”

She laughs, and Natalya finally unclenches her hands from her own dress to reach for her, pulling her up and in until they’re just a breath away. Erzsébet smells like soot and like sweat and shampoo.

“It’s a promise,” she breathes against Natalya’s lips.

Natalya kisses her.

**Author's Note:**

> actual wizarding terms in translation, in order of appearance  
> Rumpeldunk - Quidditch in Norwegian (it's probably more likely they call it the Bulgarian word at Durmstrang, but I _had_ to use Rumpeldunk because it's hilarious)  
>  Квиддич <kviddich> \- Quidditch in Russian  
> knakker, Бияч <biyach>, terelő - Beater in Norwegian, Bulgarian and Hungarian (apparently Quidditch is in Norwegian at Durmstrang now and it's all hilarious, thanks Norway)
> 
> spells in order of appearance, all based on Old Church Slavonic unless otherwise stated  
> Бол҄ьи <bolʹʹi> – bigger (Engorgio)  
> Хранѫ <khranǫ> – I guard (Protego)  
> Вода <voda> – water (Aguamenti)  
> Подвигнѫ Съмрьть <podvignǫ sʺmrʹtʹ> – I move death (Locomotor Mortis)  
> Дрьжѫ <drʹzhǫ> – I hold (Impedimenta)  
> Вцепени се <vcepeni se> – be numb (actual Bulgarian translation of Stupefy)  
> Възбѹждѫ <vʺzbuzhdǫ> – I rouse (Rennervate)  
> Изгънатизълъ <izgʺnatizʺlʺ> – to drive out bad (Expelliarmus)  
> Отъвръзѫ <otʺvrʺzǫ> – I open (Alohomora)  
> Ѹмлъчѫ <umlʺchǫ> – I am quiet (Muffliato)  
> Остолбеней <ostolbeney> – something like ‘dumbfounded’ (actual Russian translation of Stupefy)  
> Разорѭ <razori͡ǫ> – I destroy (Confringo)  
> Ѹтврьждѫ <utvrʹzhdǫ> – I fortify (Duro)
> 
> also Baba Yaga & Göncöl are figures from Slavic & Hungarian folklore that I made them use instead of, say, "Merlin's pants" :D


End file.
